One theme I always thought would be so fun for family halloween costumes was to be 101 Dalmatians! In fact, I had been saving a specific coat for 5 year for the someday we *possibly* decided to use this theme for halloween. There are quite a few options of costume ideas for families of 5 but for the family of 6 we now are, we found a little more challenging to come up with ideas this year so it was the perfect year to be 101 Dalmatians.
It’s no secret that costumes can get a little pricey, especially when purchasing for a family of 6. I priced out purchasing costumes for just me and the 4 kids and the total was almost $300. So being the DIY-er I am, I decided to make the majority of them for a fraction of the cost and I think they turned out so cute!! I’ll show you how you can do the same!!
Supply list:
1/4 yard Blue fabric
Cardboard boxes
1-2 sheets of cardstock
Disposable gloves
Optional – gold spray paint
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For the Dalmatian costumes for the older 3 kids, I purchased a white sweatshirt (I’m very glad I went with the sweatshirt and not a t-shirt considering the temperature was in the 20’s for Halloween) and white leggings. The first step is to use the scrap cardboard boxes to put strips inside the shirt body and arms and also inside the pants (to prevent the paint from bleeding through the fabric). Next, I needed to prep my stencil by cutting strips of cardstock and taping them to all 4 sides of the stencil. This is to prevent overspray when spraying the fabric. Then it was time to start spraying spots. I did this by using the spotted stencil and spray painting black spots all over the front and back of the shirt and leggings. I left these out to dry for a day and then pre-washed them before halloween (to prevent black spray paint for rubbing off on the furniture/car seats).
Then it was time to make the dog collars. I purchased 1/4 yard of blue jersey knit fabric from hobby lobby and cut a 3.5″ strip out of the short edge of this. I folded it in thirds lengthwise then hot glued the seam down. It should look like a long narrow strip when finished. (see photos below)
It’s a good idea to make sure it fits around the child’s neck loosely before going any further. It might be necessary to trim a little fabric off to make it fit right. To fasten it around the neck, you could use safety pins but I wanted them to be able to remove it easily (without getting stabbed by a pin) so I used command picture hanging strips, removed the sticker from the back and hot glued it to the fabric. It reminds me of velcro which was much easier and safer to attach around their neck. You could also use velcro, but I had these command strips already and didn’t want to make another trip to the store. The last step was to tie the dog bone to the center of the collar. These bones come silver which would be just fine but we had some gold spray paint so we decided to paint them gold. This is definitely an optional step!
Then we just added the dog ears I linked above and the costume was complete!! We did have a little extra fun with some face paint to make them really look like Dalmatians!!
As far as the rest of our costumes went, Brad dressed up as Jasper and the only thing we had to buy for him was this hat. The rest of his costume he dug out of his closet as he was getting dressed that night. Khaki pants, brown/tan/green shirt and suspenders was perfect for this character!
For the baby, I was able to find this Dalmatian costume very reasonable in his size and it even had the hood and collar already attached.
Since I was Cruella, I knew I had to find wig to really make the costume. Amazon had the perfect wig and gloves set. I planned to wear a black dress with a fur wrap I already had but with it being so cold, I opted for pants and a long sleeve shirt instead. This is an option for a fur wrap if you don’t already own one.
The grand total for what I had to purchase for all 6 of our costumes was $83 which is some big savings from the $300+ it would’ve been if I had to purchase everything premade! What do you think?! This is definitely a pretty easy DIY for anyone wanting to make their own Dalmatian costume!
